Monday, January 17, 2011

Sports Reinvention

All the news articles focus on how to get those slothful modern kids to set aside their videogames and television and go outside to play. Kids these days! Of course, this afternoon I’m faced with the opposite dilemma, where I wanted to wrap up a project on the computer and Buster was determined to GO OUTSIDE.

It felt kind of stupid to insist that we stay INSIDE and at an insatiably curious two-and-a-half, we really can’t let him wander the yard by himself. So, I accompanied him into the backyard for a game of basketball. He probably heard an audible click in my brain as I readjusted my attitude from annoyance to ‘let’s enjoy this.’

My childhood was filled with some pretty entertaining activities (learning to ski, figure skate, baton twirl), but I never got proficient at any of the main American sports – baseball, basketball, soccer, that kind of thing. I finally learned to hit a softball with some level of competence in high school gym class from a kindly baseball star who was generous to every person he met, popular or not - a pretty impressive thing when we were all age 16. I learned to (more or less) throw a football from my freshman advisees in college. But I’m awful at throwing and catching a baseball or basketball.

Now that I have two boys, I figure I should pick up some skills at the same time they do. So I dutifully practiced throwing baskets (with Q-ster’s basketball) alongside Buster and his tiny basketball. And we had a good time.

“You missed. You missed. You got it!” He exclaims.

Here are the little dudes earlier in the day, playing their version of “ping pong” with two tennis racquets and a small white plastic football. It’s never dull around here.